When we last left off there was some question as to whether our hero would to make it to Toledo.

He did not.

I got just a little bit out of Cleveland. The wind picked up and there was snow and ice blowing across the road in a way that frightenedFlorida Boy something fierce. I found the next exit and slept at a delightful Red Roof Inn.

It’s amazing how tired one gets setting on one’s assstaring forward. It was about 11:00p and I was asleep by 11:15p.

At this point the possibility being behind schedule started to creep into my consciousness. Luckily, the weather had cleared up and it was sunny, but really, really cold.

You should know that Florida Boy doesn’t own a winter cap. You should also know that Florida Boy does not have winter hair. So last night I got to experience the sacrament of purchasing a toque at Ollie’s Bargain World. One would not call the selection at Ollie’s abundant.I am now wearing a cap with a chicken on it, possibly the logo of a sports team. I wanna say baseball or possiblylacrosse.

Florida Boy also does not own winter gloves. But I am now wearing high tech gloves that are support to allow you to use modern phones like Blackberry. This invention involves a ¼ inch steel rivets sown into the index finger of both gloves. If you know anything about capacitive glass displays, you know this is absolutely the opposite of what you want. Not only is it useless, it is damaging.

On the bright side, they are women’s gloves. For a really large Cleveland woman.

Toledo, as one would expect, was uneventful. The next stop after Toledo was the first supercharger in Indiana. The supercharger was at the top of a hill. The driveway up the hill had not been plowed.

I had seen the winter driving fan boy videos from Norway that made it look like anybody can drive a Tesla up an unplowed driveway. I’m not going to say those videos are lies, but those videos portray Norwegians climbing a Tesla up an unplowed driveway. They do not portray Floridians driving a car up an unplowed driveway.

At the crest of the hill, the traction control kicked in and the wheels refused to turn. From these videos & from my studying, the best way to eliminate this problem was to disengage the traction control.

No dice.

Undaunted I shifted into reverse and decided to back down the hill. One has to be very careful when backing down a snow covered driveway, because if one isn’t careful, one might accidently back into deeper snow on the side of the unplowed driveway.

The Holiday Inn at the top of the hill lent me a snow shovel. I’m not gonna say why I needed a snow shovel.

At this point it looked like I would be able to make it past Madison, which was heartening.

At this point I realized that Nikki was a very, very dirty girl indeed. She was caked with road salt and a good washing was in order.

While supercharging at the Aurora train station, the local bartender helped me find the nearest self-service carwash. I went there to findthat there were traffic cones in front of the bay. I flouted the barrier and moved Nikki in anyway.

Here’s the problem with that.If you remember your science class from 8th grade, the chemical that you use to wash cars (dihydrogen monoxide) changes state under standard temperature and pressure (STP).

Nikki was clean. But she was glazed with ice that had frozen on contact with her minus five degrees Fahrenheit aluminum skin.

Let me take about Turnpikes. They suck. While the fuel for my entire journey was free, I spent a fortune in chicken-shit tolls. I want to say something very rude about Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. I'm thinking of a profane epithet that involves congress with swine.